Metal Play day

I have been wanting to do something more with this

to develop it into a wall-hanging in Beryl Taylor's style and to make an indian-themed piece. These ideas are finally coming together....you might remember I started playing with some indian themed pieces here.
Last week some friends & I had a play day with metal so I will be able to add some more elements to the above.

We tried embossing copper shim, Silver Scotch Tape, coke cans and copper slug tape all through a cuttlebug. Pretty designs.

Then we coloured them

The above examples are mainly using alcohol inks
In this close-up shot the 2 narrow strips are the slug tape, the wider is the silver scotch tape, and the heart was cut from the metal shim.

Pleasing colouring on all of them. And the coke can worked just fine too

We also tried copic markers

and nail polish - need to get myself some more colours

Looking forward to seeing what happens to these lovely indian themed cut-outs when I colour them

But this, I think, needs nothing else - alcohol inks on embossed copper shim

I will just be adding some stitching around the edge of this to attach it to an appropriate background. I tried punching and stitching a piece of the coloured metal to sari thread and felt as an example of what I mean :

One other technique that was fun and a variation was to add a layer of gesso for a distressed look. This is a piece of alcohol-inked silver scotch tape

and here it is after I covered it with a layer of gesso and rubbed it off again with a paper towel.

Really keen to get stuck into developing the piece now - this was my first play with laying things on the background a couple of months ago.

So many more cool ideas to add now :-)

If you want some more inspiration, Judy Coates Perez has some cool posts about embossing and playing with metal. Also if you're on Facebook, check out photos from a Beryl Taylor Magic Metal workshop held at Valley Ridge Art Studio.